A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #227
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For March 9-15, 2022, a roundup of the week's finest prose and prose humor-related news.
Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. Happy St. Patrick's Day! We've turned the entire newsletter green today in honor of the holiday! (NOTE: If the newsletter is not showing up as green, try restarting your computer. It's probably an error on your end!)
What We Enjoyed This Week
I Am the Man Who Says “Ciao” by Philip Kean (McSweeney's) Spinning out a biography from one evocative detail can be a fun way to explore a specific kind of person. Philip does a great job of keeping the focus on the word "ciao," but making sure each instance feels fresh by adding more details about the main character. Putting this guy on a date gives the piece a light narrative arc that keeps it moving along, to new places where he can "ciao."
Notes From The Proverb Committee Meeting on Giving Men Fish by Lillie E. Franks (Slackjaw) It's easy to imagine a simpler version of this piece that's just a list of rejected versions of this famous proverb. But formatting this as a series of short snippets of conversation gives the reader a fun mental image of three people really sweating out the best possible version of this proverb. It's a fun layer!
Plausible-Sounding Aphorisms, In Case You Need To Buy Time In A Conversation by Daniel Lavery (The Chatner) Another great example of conjuring a mental image for the reader. The aphorisms are funny on their own, but the title, framing them as something you’d use to stall, makes you imagine someone dropping these casually and confidently in an otherwise normal conversation, which only makes them funnier.
Why I Stopped People-Pleasing and Started Carrying Around the Big Spanking Spoon by Freddie Shanel (Reductress) Very silly premises can be tough to justify; sometimes over investigating backstory can muddy the spark that made a silly thing funny and surprising in the first place. In this piece, Freddie smartly turns the focus of the piece onto the narrator and their reactions--it's not about the Big Spanking Spoon per se, which is self-explanatory enough, it's more about how the narrator feels when they have the Big Spanking Spoon.
An Old Favorite
All the trains in my son’s train podcast ranked by how much I hate them by Ben Jenkins (The Guardian) We all have things that we don't like, and most of us could be reasonably articulate about why we don't like them. But there's a specific sort of sharpened displeasure that comes from disliking something that you can't escape. Ben's white-hot hatred of these fictional trains is very satisfying for the more intellectual short humor craft reasons (a juxtaposition of heightened tone with relatively inconsequential subject matter, heightening of emotion, specificity of word choice and phrasing), but it's also just fun to hear a guy wish that a made-up, anthropomorphic train would be blown apart by dynamite.
Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
There are still spots left in Luke's workshops starting on March 29th and March 30th! In the former, you'll write a short humor piece in four weeks, going from brainstorm to full draft. In the latter you'll write three drafts over the course of four weeks. In both you'll get feedback every step of the way in a supportive environment. Check out this thread to see some of the great writing that's come out of past workshops!
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
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If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is!
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can subscribe to our paid tier, or you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
If you'd like to place an ad in the Newsletter, please fill out this form.
If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is!